“Good to see you, too,” she told Noah.
“Aren’t you getting something?” He gestured toward the counter.
“No, I’ve eaten.” She’d made herself a couple of eggs when she fed Levi. “No races this week?”
As a professional cyclist, Noah was often out of town during the summer, training or competing in Europe.
“Nope.” He grimaced as he stretched his right leg. “Pulled a hamstring. Gotta let it heal before climbing back on a bike.”
“Bet you hate the inactivity.”
“I’ve been kayaking lately, but...yeah. I’d rather not lose everything I gained in training.”
Kyle strolled in. His eyes gravitated to her first, but he waved to Noah and Baxter from the line forming at the counter as Cheyenne and her husband, Dylan, entered behind him. Eve, Sophia and Ted trailed in last.
They each placed an order before taking a seat at their customary table in the back corner. “Where’s Riley today?” Sophia asked as she settled her expensive Gucci bag at her feet.
“He had to be in Jackson for a job,” Ted answered but he didn’t look at Sophia when he spoke. They’d once been an item—until she’d broken up with him to marry Skip Debussi instead. According to town gossip, she did this for Skip’s money. He came from money to begin with, so he stood to inherit—and he’d made millions on his own. But everyone believed Sophia regretted the marriage and stayed in it only because she had a daughter with him.
“He’ll be here with us next week,” Kyle added.
The barista called Eve’s name. “I thought maybe Phoenix had gotten out of prison and he was dealing with that,” she said as she stood to collect her latte.
Because of her own problems, Callie had lost track of the latest with Riley and Phoenix, but it was definitely a sensational topic, one that invited a lot of conjecture. Riley had dated Phoenix during their senior year—just long enough to get her pregnant. But he hadn’t known about the baby when he moved on. Neither had he ever expected her to run down the next girl he liked. Phoenix had been serving time for vehicular manslaughter since shortly after graduation. She’d even had the baby in prison, at which point the authorities had shuttled Jacob out to Riley and his parents.
“No.” Baxter shook his head. “Phoenix got into a fight in the exercise yard. Claims she was jumped by three other women. But there was no way to tell who started it. So they extended her stay.”
“Until when?” Cheyenne asked.
“Kyle said end of August,” Noah told her.
Callie couldn’t help feeling sorry for Phoenix. It was irrefutable that she’d swerved. There were witnesses. But had she meant to
kill
Lori Mansfield? That was hard to believe. Phoenix had always been a bit...different. She came from a challenging situation. But Callie had had a class with Phoenix and found her to be nice enough.
“I can’t imagine she’ll come back
here,
” Ted said. “She doesn’t have anything to come back to. We all know what her mother’s like. It’s a miracle she hasn’t been featured on an episode of
Hoarders.
”
Callie scowled. “Hoarder or not, Lizzie is still her mother and she’s only getting older and more...off. Someone’s got to take care of her. It’s not as if Phoenix’s brothers will step up to help.”
“And Jacob’s here,” Sophia added. “Phoenix hasn’t seen her son since she gave birth to him.”
“Sophia’s right,” Eve agreed. “Phoenix has been writing Riley all along, asking for pictures of Jacob.”
“I didn’t know that,” Cheyenne said. “Does he respond to those letters?”
“Most of the time he ignores them. He can’t encourage her or he’ll make the situation worse.” Noah paused to take a sip of his coffee. “You don’t want someone like that to have any influence over your child.”
“He’s told her plenty of times that he doesn’t want anything to do with her, that Jacob is better off without her,” Ted chipped in. “She should just stay out of their lives. Start over somewhere else.”
Of course, Riley wouldn’t want this woman, this convict, showing up on his doorstep and laying claim to the child he’d raised for thirteen years. But what about Jacob? What if he wanted to know his mother?
Callie wondered if she’d be alive to see what happened the day Phoenix returned to Whiskey Creek....
“Maybe she’s not as bad as we all think.”
This comment came from Sophia, which seemed to surprise more than just Callie. Sophia hadn’t been one of them in high school. She’d had her own group, most of whom were as mean as she’d been.
“She caused Lori’s
death,
” Eve said, obviously exasperated.
“I know but—” Sophia turned her cup in a circle as if she was hesitant yet driven to speak up “—she’d been drinking. Sometimes people do
really
stupid things when they’re drunk.”
There was no arguing with that, but everyone was so firmly on Riley’s side that this comment didn’t bring her the positive attention she’d been looking for since trying to become part of the group. Gail was about the only one who’d been able to forgive her. Maybe it would be easier for the others to do that, too, if she hadn’t done so many catty things. Actually, at times she’d been
more
than catty.
“Regardless, what happened happened,” Ted muttered. “Like I said, she should leave Riley and Jacob alone and build a life elsewhere.”
Sophia shot Ted a steely look. “When you’re a mother, accepting the loss of a child is easier said than done.”
Putting his elbows on the table, Ted leaned forward to make his point. “If Phoenix hadn’t killed Lori, she wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“You don’t know what was going on inside her head when it happened!” Sophia retorted. “How can you judge? It’s easy to think you know who’s right and who’s wrong when you’re looking in from the outside.”
Ted slammed down his cup. “So what are we really talking about, Sophia? What you did to
Scott?
”
There was a collective gasp as she blanched. Then her face reddened and she stood. “I—I’m sorry. I don’t seem to be very good company today. Excuse me.”
They all gaped at Ted as she left.
“Wasn’t that a little harsh?” Noah asked after the door swung shut.
Given how much time had passed, Callie thought it was. They hadn’t mentioned Scott’s name since Sophia had started coming to coffee. Once the best basketball player to attend Eureka High, he’d been killed in a drunk-driving accident that most people blamed her for causing. Even though she wasn’t in the vehicle with him, it was her actions that had led him to take the risk.
“She’s the only mother among us,” Cheyenne said. “Of course she’s going to feel bad for a woman whose actions have cost her her child.”
“Forget about her. She has no business coming here, anyway,” Ted grumbled, but he slumped morosely over his coffee, as if he regretted what he’d done.
“Gail says she’s not so bad anymore—” Cheyenne started, but Noah grabbed her arm.
“Let it go,” he murmured, and she did. They all knew that Ted was probably still in love with Sophia. That was why he couldn’t get past how she’d wronged him.
“There are better things to talk about than Sophia or Phoenix,” Baxter said.
“Like?” Eve asked.
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Callie’s got something interesting going on in her life.”
A flicker of fear raced through Callie—until she realized that Baxter wasn’t about to give her away. He was referring to the fact that she had a guest at the farm.
“Oh, yeah!” Noah said. “Tell us about this drifter.”
Obviously, Baxter had mentioned Levi to Noah. Or Kyle had. Maybe they’d all talked about him, because no one asked, “What drifter?” Anything of note spread quickly among them.
“There’s not much to tell,” she said, when all eyes turned to her. “His name’s Levi. He needs work—and I need labor.” She shrugged, hoping to convince her friends that his being in her life wasn’t a big deal. “So we’ve worked out a trade.”
“How long will he be staying with you?” Dylan typically didn’t do much of the talking. Until he’d married Cheyenne, he hadn’t been a member of the group. But he’d been a far more welcome addition to coffee on Fridays than Sophia, even though she’d been coming a lot longer. Their first loyalty was and always would be to Ted.
Callie met Dylan’s gaze. His eyes were too pretty to belong to a former MMA fighter, she thought, but his crooked nose betrayed him. “A week or so.”
Kyle’s scowl grew so dark, several people shifted as if he was making them uncomfortable.
“You don’t like that he’s there, Kyle?” Cheyenne asked, calling him on his reaction.
A second rush of panic, this one for an entirely different reason, had Callie curling her fingernails into her palms. If Kyle wasn’t careful, he’d give them away. She already felt as though she had the word
guilty
emblazoned on her forehead.
“I’m just worried,” he replied. “She doesn’t really know him, doesn’t know what he’s capable of.”
Eve looked perplexed. “Hasn’t he been there a few nights already?”
“Doesn’t mean anything,” Kyle insisted. “It takes longer than that to earn trust.”
Callie rolled her eyes. “He’s not going to hurt me.”
When Baxter spoke up, Callie was grateful to him for drawing some of the scrutiny away from her. “I think having a man on the farm might be a good thing.”
“Why do you think that?” It was Kyle, of course, who challenged him.
“You never know.” He cradled his cup. “That means she’s got help on hand, if she needs it. From what she’s told me, this dude can fight.”
Dylan might’ve spoken up. He knew all about professional fighting. But Kyle was having none of it. “She’s got Rifle to protect her.”
“True,” Baxter said, “but the owners of those killer pit bulls are blaming her for the fact that they’ve been impounded.”
“Those guys are renters,” Kyle argued. “They won’t be in town long. And they’ll calm down and forget about her once he leaves.”
“What if they don’t?” Baxter asked.
“Then we’ll protect her. I don’t care how good this guy can fight. No one can fight better than Dylan.”
“What’s his name again?” Dylan asked.
Someone told him “Levi McCloud” and Dylan said he’d never heard of him, but Callie had stopped paying attention. Her chair scraped the old wooden floor as she shoved it back. Kyle was driving her crazy. “Look, I’ll do what I want, okay? We’re not taking a vote.”
Startled by the edge in her voice, everyone looked up, including Kyle. She’d sounded far too impassioned, but she couldn’t stem the emotions that threatened to come bubbling out of her. For some reason, she wasn’t really enjoying this morning. She had too much on her mind. She just wanted to get back to Levi.
“I’ve got to go.” She hurried to her car and pulled out of the parking lot before anyone could catch up with her. She wanted to return to the farmhouse, but she drove to her parents’ instead.
* * *
“Mom?” Callie let herself in the front door and stood in the entry.
“There you are!” Her mother rolled down a hallway that had recently been widened to accommodate her wheelchair. “Too bad your father’s not home. He’s been asking if I’ve heard from you.”
Boone Vanetta sold life insurance. Although Callie had a fifty-fifty chance of finding him at home on any given day, his truck wasn’t parked in its usual spot out by the flagpole. Callie guessed he was at his office in town. At sixty-six he still worked but he’d gone part-time since her mother’s health had begun to deteriorate. Fortunately, he was the only State Farm agent in Whiskey Creek and had a very loyal clientele.
“You’ve been so quiet lately.” Her mother didn’t sound pleased; her next few words explained why. “It seems like you hardly ever call.”
The guilt Callie was already feeling became more intense. She checked in fairly regularly, but she’d meant to do it more often. She’d just been so preoccupied after Levi arrived. And Diana’s pointed questions made it hard to lie—about anything. Since being diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, Callie had squirmed through every conversation.
Forcing a smile despite the anxiety slamming through her like a million gallons of rushing water, she bent to kiss her mother’s cheek. She hated seeing Diana in a wheelchair. A relatively new addition to their lives, it was proof that her mother would have more difficulties to face as her own disease progressed. “I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy.”
“At the studio?” The chair’s motor whined. “I thought you were taking the summer off. That’s what you said when you moved out to the farm. That’s why I thought we’d see more of you.”
“I’m still helping at Reflections when I can. I have my garden and some other photography to keep up with. And it’s taking time and effort to put the farm to rights.” She considered mentioning Levi. She had to tell her parents about him, too. But she figured she’d save that for later. She had more pressing news.
“I hate to sell that place,” her mother said. “I loved growing up there.”
Callie adjusted her purse strap. “Maybe we should keep it.” She came back to that again and again, even though the amount of care a farm required didn’t make owning one very practical for someone who didn’t plan to work it. And what would her parents do with the property after she was gone? They’d just have to sell it. So why not do it now?
“It’ll be smarter to liquidate. Then we’ll have the money we need for our retirement, and you’ll inherit the rest.” Her mother rolled back a few inches to take a good look at her. “You’ve lost weight.”
Callie cleared her throat. “A few pounds.”
“Come on. Some homemade lasagna will fatten you up.”
“But it’s not even noon yet.” And there was no way that was on her diet.
Her mother was already rolling into the other room. “Then you can take some home with you.”
Reluctantly, Callie followed Diana into the kitchen and sat at the table. She wanted to tell her mother what she’d come to say, to get it off her chest, but she didn’t know how to start. “You been feeling okay?” she asked instead.
“About the same.” Her mother maneuvered around the kitchen with surprising dexterity.
“How’s dad been managing his diabetes?”
“His glucose numbers haven’t been as good as they should be.” She tossed Callie an exasperated grin. “I think he’s sneaking sweets.”